The Big Fat Marketing Blog

Remember this blog post from about seven months ago, the one about Constant Contact constantly contacting me? Well now I’m trying to cancel my Constant Contact account, and I can’t unless I do it by phone… and I’ve been on hold for about a half an hour now.

What makes this even funnier is that a blogger complained about this four years ago, and Constant Contact doesn’t seem to be listening. You would think a marketer that deals with communication would be on the lookout for bad things being said about it, and strive to make customer-centric changes. more

Ah, geolocation. Ask just about any marketer: It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. When are we going to admit that geolocation is not very effective? Maybe when more writers and bloggers speak up and say they are sitting at their desk, about 1,200 miles away from the deal that’s reached their computer screen.

My office is in Stamford, CT. I’m on our company’s Overland Park, KS-based server. That’s 1,251 miles if I drive 20 hours four minutes on I-70, or 1,350 miles if I drive 21 hours 25 minutes on I-64.

So these offers designed to drive me into businesses in Overland Park or nearby Kansas City are really not going to be very effective. All they’re going to do is tell me what I already know: Geolocation sucks. more

It’s great to see that after all this time Penzeys Spices still produces one of the best print catalogs around. But it’s disheartening to see that Penzeys still hasn’t managed to take full advantage of the Internet.

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Five-day mail delivery has been viewed by many postal officials as the big panacea for the U.S. Postal service and its attendant financial vicissitudes. more

Finally, rich people on private jets have something worthwhile to do while they’re, uh, jetsetting. A direct marketing firm called Private Shoppes has created a specialty inflight and online catalog exclusively for general aviation passengers.

“General aviation” passengers doesn’t sound all that high-end to me, but I guess that means people who fly on private jets. more

… you give your fans an offer they can’t receive elsewhere.

I’ve published a few articles of late that indicate a few things: Facebook users do not want to be sold to while they are feeding their chickens on Farmville or whacking someone in Mafia Wars. But consumers who become your fan on Facebook do expect something in return.

It looks like woman’s apparel and accessories seller Nine West is going about it the right way. Marketing firm Fluid launched its Fluid Fan Shop app on Nine West’s Facebook page this week , and it allows the merchant’s Facebook fans to shop for select discounted items without leaving the social network. more